Calling green energy an investment in national security, retired Gen. Wesley Clark said during a University of Toledo speech Friday that America’s dependence on foreign oil has fueled political instability around the world for decades.

One of the worst examples, he said, was the 2003 invasion of Iraq authorized by former President George W. Bush.

“We never really understood why we invaded Iraq,” Mr. Clark said, suggesting the efforts to find “weapons of mass destruction” was a ruse.

Unlike the decision to invade Afghanistan 17 months earlier, when the United States began a worldwide manhunt for Osama bin Laden in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the latest war with Iraq “was a violation of everything the American Army has learned and taught the last 50 years,” Mr. Clark told a standing-room-only crowd in the SSOE Room of UT’s Nitschke Hall.

“The goal was to go to Baghdad, but there was no plan in place when we got there,” he said. “We took this society apart. It only took 90 days for the insurgency to move in.”

Conversely, the so-called first war involving Iraq, the 1990-91 Gulf War directed by Mr. Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, was “the type of war America likes to fight.”

Funded largely by Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti oil riches, it was over in a matter of weeks and had a defined mission of liberating Kuwait from Iraq — even though, in the big picture, America’s main interest then was in maintaining a steady flow of oil, Mr. Clark said.

Throughout his speech, Mr. Clark went through a timeline of how America’s dependence on the Middle East grew with its dependence on oil from that part of the world.

“The 20th century was about petroleum. It really took off when Winston Churchill put the British fleet on oil instead of coal,” he said. “Oil was power.”

That all changed with the terrorist attacks of 2001.

He said oil prices are down partly because foreign countries have overproduced, knowing they will have less power if America becomes more energy independent.

“It’s unsustainable in the long term,” he said of expanded production. “We were drawn into the region because of our reliance on foreign oil.”

Mr. Clark said he supports domestic efforts to increase use of wind, solar, and biofuels such as ethanol, now derived primarily from corn in the United States.

Ethanol development also has been supported by U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo), who arranged for the former general’s visit to UT.

“You can run the same automobile in Brazil on 25 percent ethanol as you do in the United States and it runs fine,” Mr. Clark said. “As a matter of national security, we’ve got to have energy independence. We can’t keep fighting these wars for oil. You might need to be in the Middle East for other reasons. But not when you can produce [fuel] at home.”

He said he supports renewable-energy portfolio mandates on utilities.

In an interview with The Blade, Mr. Clark said Ohio Gov. John Kasich sent the wrong message to the business community when he froze Ohio’s renewable-energy rule for two years.

“We should face the future with confidence. We should not be eager to put troops back in the Middle East,” Mr. Clark said. “You have to look at green energy as an investment. It’s not a cost. It’s an investment.”

Contact Tom Henry at: thenry@theblade.com, 419-724-6079, or via Twitter @ecowriterohio.

First Published November 21, 2015, 5:00 a.m.